the voyeur 2021 movie review

‘The Voyeurs’: Neighbors who are spying in a plot no one’s buying

Sydney sweeney and justice smith play the couple peeking at the hot people across the way as the thriller heads toward its dubious final twist.

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Pippa (Sydney Sweeney) and boyfriend Thomas (Justice Smith) keep watch on their sexually active neighbors in “The Voyeurs.”

Amazon Studios

Credit to writer-director Michael Mohan’s “The Voyeurs” for swinging for the fences in an erotic thriller with clear echoes of films such as “Rear Window” and “Body Double” and “9 ½ Weeks” and “Eyes Wide Shut” and let’s throw in TV series such as “The Twilight Zone” and “Night Gallery” and “Black Mirror” as well.

Alas, you’d be better off watching any of those films or just about any single episode of those anthology series than this salacious and wildly implausible story that holds our interest for a while before flying off the cliff and into an abyss of creepy, ludicrous and ultimately ridiculous twists and turns.

Sydney Sweeney is a rising star who has done fine work on series such as “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Sharp Objects,” “Euphoria” and “The White Lotus,” and she’s the best thing in “The Voyeurs” as Pippa, who works at an eye clinic (ooh, the first of many VOYEUR metaphors!) and has just moved into a spacious loft apartment with her boyfriend Thomas (Justice Smith), and they’re just the most adorable couple as they giggle and cuddle and coo about making such a grown-up decision. They’re young and in love, and their whole lives are ahead of them, and they’ll drink to that — and whoa wait a minute, they can see directly into the apartment across the square, and wow that couple is hot and holy wow are they going at it.

As we eventually learn, the neighbors are Seb (Ben Hardy), a photographer who works out of a home studio and specializes in taking nude photos of his models and then seducing his subjects; and Julia (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), a former model who may or may not know about her husband’s myriad of extracurricular activities. At first, it’s Thomas who’s really into the spying game, as he whips out the binoculars and does play-by-play, but then Pippa becomes obsessed with them. Thomas and Pippa even figure out a way to plant a device in their neighbors’ apartment that will allow them to not only see them but hear their conversations, and things get even more twisted and bizarre after Julia just happens to walk into the clinic where Pippa works, and the two women become friends. (Not that Julia has any idea Pippa spends nearly every waking moment at home spying on her and/or her husband).

“The Voyeurs” doesn’t shy away from graphic nudity and explicit sex sequences, but all that exposed flesh and all that overwrought writhing is mere window dressing (so to speak) as Pippa goes so deep down the rabbit hole that Thomas doesn’t even know who she is anymore. Pippa’s actions have dire consequences. Sweeney does her best to sell this sordid story material, but Justice Smith and Ben Hardy are unfortunately bland as the two men in Pippa’s life, and Natasha Liu Bordizzo is saddled with such a dumb role that perhaps no actor on the planet could make it work. By the time we reach the insanely dubious final twist of “The Voyeurs,” we’d rather just look the other way.

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The Voyeurs Reviews

The Voyeurs is a terribly uninspired and silly erotic thriller whose ridiculousness grows the further the film advances in Pippa’s voyeuristic madness.

Full Review | Original Score: D | Mar 5, 2024

Lags a bit in the second act, but there's enough twists and turns as the film heads towards its climax that mostly make up for it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 5, 2023

This messy, campy slice of Erotic Thriller is a blast. Sure, it's too long and the twists are utterly ridiculous, but that's more than half of the fun. But seriously: where is the male nudity?!

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 5, 2023

The Voyeurs believes itself to be a steamy, saucy and tense thriller with an intriguing twist, yet the reality is a messy and often laughable story that becomes goofier by the second.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 6, 2023

The Voyeurs is a “Hitchrotic” thriller that doesn’t know the meaning of the word “stop.”

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 9, 2022

A tense, first-class, erotically charged mystery-thriller...What unfolds is a wonderfully seductive tale of intrigue, full of twists and left turns that, in the best Hitchcock tradition, keeps you glued to the screen.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 15, 2021

There's a lot to like about where this thriller eventually ends up, but it simply takes too long to get to its last act.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 13, 2021

Some fine tuning and a little less let's-bash-our-audiences-over-the-head-with-a-cautionary-tale-mentality could've truly helped these voyeurs see the light

Full Review | Oct 12, 2021

A handsome erotic thriller laden with cinema references, that is light on psychological drama and cannot rise above the twists and turns of its implausible narrative

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 5, 2021

Whatever its flaws, the fact that The Voyeurs embraces nudity, sexuality, and sex with an unapologetic zeal is a delight and a thrill.

Full Review | Oct 4, 2021

The twists that ensue (social media playing a part, as you might expect) are fairly neat, as is the staging and cinematography; the bigger issue here is this that these four comely beasts have no soul...

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 30, 2021

An absolute treat - an inventive, playful, genre-savvy thriller that will get your pulse racing.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Sep 20, 2021

Many have bemoaned modern day filmmaking for not embracing how ridiculous movies once were, but there are moments where "The Voyeurs" succeeds in capturing that sensation.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 17, 2021

It's over-thought and too long, but features involving characters and enjoyably surprising situations.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 16, 2021

By the time we get to the over-the-top final act, the film has morphed into an abstract morality play where even the most basic credibility is sacrificed in the interest of a vaguely stated thesis.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Sep 15, 2021

A knowingly naughty treat, Mohan's cheeky erotic thriller harkens back to a happier, hornier era of Skinemax After Dark offerings and unrated VHS director's cuts.

Full Review | Sep 13, 2021

As the screenplay unspools some ridiculous final-act twists, it's highly unlikely you'll care about any of these seedy characters or their fate.

Full Review | Sep 12, 2021